Container closure



July 21, 1953 ITE-Z- F. G. PELLETT CONTAINER CLOSURE Filed Sept. 8. 1950 Snventor.-

FRED E'. PELLBTT Patented July 21, 1953 UNITED STATES TI''I'v OFFICE r' A' 1"2,646,183f V 4 f1vir W ooi'virApINEaoI-QOSURE 1 n Y Free G. reilen, rieao, ohio, assigner to owensf Illinois Glass Company, a corporation of Ohio ppiicauen september s, 195o, serial No. 183,766

This invention Yrelates to closures for bottles and vjars and more particularly to closure liners including an impervious membrane facing sheet which is intended to remain securely'bonded to the sealing surface of a container during and after removal ofthe closure.Vv f Such a method of sealing is utilized quite extensively in the pharmaceutical and food fields where it is important that the packaged product be protected against the admission of outside air such as would have a deleterious effect upon the product. It is common practice to utilize the combination of a cushion or `bla-cking. liner disk and a membrane facing sheet or liner, both being placed in a screw-type closure. Sealing of a container with such a closure is effected by albplying an adhesive to the sealing surface of the containerand then placing the closure upon the Vlatter in the usual manner.` Incident to screwing the closure ontothe container, the adhesive Y is yspread uniformly over thesealing surface so shipment to the packers, or in any event, prior to the application of the closures tothe containers. It obviously is impractical to inspect the closures individually at the container sealing station to determine the presence or absence of such facing liners.

An important object of my invention is the provision of novel, simple, and completely re- Ai. claim. v(01.,215-40) use of a'wax film .of predetermined tackiness and pattern. Y

Referring 'to the accompanying drawings: Y' Fig. V1 is a 'sectional view showing my improved closure applied to the neck of a container.

l and containerv being inpart section; v

Fig. 3Y is a Vfragmentary View of the closure,

vclosure liner, Vand container similar to Fig. 1 on a greatly enlarged scale.

Referring, to Fig. 1,V a closure .i0 and closure linerr I i are shown in sealing position on a container l2. The closure l0 includes a skirt I3- provided with screw threads III, the latter performing thevtwo-fold function of holding the liner in the closure and securing the cap to the con- Y IE6-and a membrane facing sheet I'I. A thin tacky liable means for overcoming the above noted obi jection. To that end 1 provide an adhesive connection, or bond, between the Afacing liner and cushioning liner, or disk, of such degree that they are reliably held assembled during shipment, handling, etc., yet will readily separate incident to removal of the closure from a container. Such functioning is due to the bond between the two liners being much less effective than the degree of adhesion of the facing liner to the glass, yet sufficient to prevent accidental separation of the two liners.

A further object is vthe provision of a liner of the above characterin which the bond between the cushion and facing liners or disks is effected only at Va Ymultiplicity of isolated points.

VIt is also an object to provide such a bond between the cushion and facing liners through the tainer.

' lated points I9.

The container has threads I5 formed thereon and adaptedl to engage with the threads I4 of the closure. p y

The closure liner i'I comprises a cushion disk wax film I8 is interposed between the cushion disk I 5 and thin membrane facing sheet I'I and serves to adhesively attach them at a multiplicity of iso- These isolated points of adhesion may` be obtained during manufacture by passing the disk and sheet in strip form under .a roll as disclosed and .claimed in application Ser.

lNo. 197,932, filed November 28, 1950, and now Patent No. 2,584.002, in the namesof William Elser and Kenneth L. Richard, entitled Method and Apparatus for Bonding Closure Materials. The liners are then punched cr cut out of the laminated strip.

It should be notedthat this limination wherein the cushion disk and membrane facing sheet are bonded or connected at a multiplicity of isolated points, results in a more definite"defreeV of adhesion at the points of contact than would be acceptable over the entire area. There is also less tendency for Vthe membrane to separate when the material is exed or changed dimensionally due to Variations in temperature or humidity.

The liner I I, comprising the two elements I6 and IT, is inserted in the closure as an integral unit. After the container is filled and'it is desired to seal the container, an adhesive 20 is applied to the top sealing surface ZI of the container I2 and the closure with liner is then screwed onto the container. An eifective seal is thereby provided. When it is desired to remove the contents, the closure is unscrewed and the bond or connection between the cushion disk I6 and membrane facing sheet l1 is thereby broken, leaving the cushion liner in the closure and the facing liner on the container. The membrane facing sheet remains sealed to the neck of the container and must be removed or pierced in order to make the contents available. This result necessarily occurs since the bond between the cushion disk I6 and membrane facing sheet il is many times less than that between the membrane facing sheet l1 and the top surface 2l of the container I2.

The cushion disk I6 may be made of any of the usual materials such as, pulp and oil paper, pulp and Vinylite paper, provided that the paper is smooth and non-porous to the extent that a controlled amount of wax may be applied to the surface.

The membrane facing sheet Il may be made of materials such as, glassine paper, cellophane, Saran film or metal foil, dependent upon the type of product being packaged.

The wax lm I8 which is interposed between the cushion disk I6 and the membrane facing sheet Il must be of such a nature that its adhesion can be carefully controlled. I have found, for example, that a suitable wax material can be obtained by mixing highly adhesive petroleum wax and paraffin wax in proper percentages. I have further found that for good results the thickness of this coating must be drastically reduced from the normal 0001-0002 of an inch to 00001-00003 of an inch.

It can thus be seen that the construction described results in a combination wherein the seal or connection between the cushion disk i6 and membrane facing sheet i 'I is many times less than that between the membrane facing sheet I1 and the top surface 2i of the container.

Modifications will be resorted to within the spirit and scope of the appended claim.

In combination, a container having an annular wall defining an opening and a sealing surface,

4 a closure provided with engaging means, comple-- mentary means on the annular wall of the container for engaging the means on said closure, a liner positioned within said closure and comprising a cushion disk, a thin coating of wax constituting a continuous film coating formed on one side of the cushion disk, said coating comprising a mixture of petroleum wax and paraffin wax and having a thickness within the range of 0.0001 to 0.0003 of an inch, a membrane facing sheet positioned over said thin coating of wax and adhered to the disk by isolated areas of the wax coating to form a discontinuous bond between the disk and sheet, the degree of adhesion being only sufficient to hold the disk and sheet against accidental separation, and adhesive means between said sheet and sealing surface securing said sheet to said sealing surface, the adhesive nature of said adhesive means being such that adhesion of the sheet to the said sealing surface is at least several times greater than the adhesion of the sheet to the disk by the wax, whereby when the closure is removed from the container the bond between the cushion disk and the membrane facing sheet is broken and the membrane facing sheet remains sealed to the sealing surface of the container.

FRED G. PELLI-ETT.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Y Number Name Date 695,273 Birnie et al Mar. 11, 1902 1,606,307 Loomis et al. Nov. 9, 1926 1,634,073 Labombarde June 28, 1927 1,837,618 Gutmann Dec. 22, 1931 1,966,273 Waring July 10, 1934 1,979,458 Eisen Nov. 6, 1934 2,029,922 Heckel et al. Feb. 4, 1936 2,031,036 Dreymann Feb. 1S, 1936 2,077,992 Eisen Apr. 20, 1937 2,359,924 Leary Oct. 10, 1944 2,387,439 Grabus, Jr., et al. Oct. 23, 1945 

